A man found shot to death in a utility vehicle on the A26

It was five o'clock in the morning on Friday when the body of a 47-year-old man was found in a British utility vehicle, in the Champ l'Epée area, on the A26 between Troyes (Aube) and Reims (Marne). The victim, in the passenger seat, had “a gunshot wound to the head,” the Troyes prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

Inside the vehicle, the police called to the scene discovered “around ten people of foreign nationality in an irregular situation on French territory”, according to the prosecutor, who did not specify their nationalities, nor that of the deceased man.

A person arrested

According to the first investigations, shots had been fired at this motorway area "while the vehicle in which the victim was had just parked", and several people then fled, again according to the press release from the Troyes public prosecutor's office.

A person “likely to have been present at the scene” was arrested Friday morning, and “immediately” placed in police custody, the magistrate said.

A judicial investigation must be opened on Sunday “on counts of murder, attempted murder, unauthorized possession of a weapon, assistance with the entry, movement and illegal stay of a foreigner in France in an organized gang and human trafficking in an organized gang”. The investigations were entrusted to the Reims research section.